Home & Decor catches up with Jeremy Rowe, Akzonobel director for Decorative Paints, South East & South Asia, Middle East, to find out more about the brand’s Colour of the Year and other innovative products in the pipeline.
Most Singaporeans lean towards pastels and lighter hues – not an unusual choice, as they go well with our lightfilled environment. These colours are easy to match with furnishings and accessories as well. But more people are experimenting with darker and vibrant colours, particularly with feature walls. They are also trying out textures and metallic paints.
We picked Heartwood 18 months ago, when our colour specialists started going out into the marketplace to look at the colours people were beginning to use. We noticed people used warm-toned colours such as pink, grey and brown. After catching on to this trend, our colour specialists – an internal team and an external group of international industry specialists – then deliberated on the Colour of the Year, as well as its complementary colour palettes.
For interior paints, one of the technologies we’ve been developing is for stain resistance, because you want to keep a wall looking good once you’ve painted it. Our stain-resistance technology, which is in our Dulux Wash and Wear, turns liquid stains into beads that sit on the surface that can be wiped away, so stains don’t seep into the paint film.
For exterior paints, which would interest residents of landed property more, we have been developing paints with self-cleaning technology so that a painted surface can clean itself by resisting mould and water. This technology is found in our Dulux Weathershield paint, which also has heatreflective qualities that keep the outside wall at least 5 deg C cooler than with other paints.
Both Colours of the Year – Heart Wood and Ultra Violet – are actually not far from each other, which is unsurprising as both brands often observe the same trends in the market.
Dulux’s Colour of the Year is Heart Wood, a warm dusty pink shade that will transform homes into true sanctuaries.
4 STEPS TO CHOOSING THE RIGHT PAINT FOR YOUR WALLS
1 Express in words how you would want a particular room to feel. If you envision “happy” and “light”, we suggest lighter and more vibrant colours. Other adjectives such as “cosy” or “warm” point towards warmertoned colours.
2 Narrow your options down to a key colour. It doesn’t have to be a specific hue, but you can consider colour families, such as blues, greens or yellows.
3 Create a complementary or contrasting colour scheme using the colour wheel.
4 If you’re feeling bold, go a further step by creating a more layered look with textured paints that can produce finishes, such as a glossy marble look or linen fabric texture.
